Christian lingo makes my skin crawl. However, sometimes it's almost unavoidable. It can act as a kind of shorthand, and get to the point quicker. That is good. But sometimes it's misleading. That is not good.
If you're a Christian, you're familiar with the almost password kind of question, "Do you KNOW God personally?" "Do you KNOW Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior?" If you say "yes" then you can enter the inner circle. Whew, now I'm in, now I arrived! Or did I?
When did this language start to become in vogue? Now it has spread like a virus. Now we have everyone parroting this stuff without attending much thought to the substance behind it. This is troubling.
But what is more troubling is this. We can become presumptuous in our knowledge of God. We can assume knowledge flippantly. We can easily slip into irreverence. Immodesty can make a home in our hearts. I pray God will explode the shells of our hearts that contain a god too small. We can know small gods, but can we know the UNSPEAKABLY HOLY God?
Think of the incomprehensibility of God. Think of the otherness of God. Think of the holiness of God. We merely grasp at God with failing language. We must admit it's kinda hard to embrace a God who's shrouded in magnificent mystery. When we say we KNOW God, let us never become presumptuous thinking we have grasped and contained the uncontainable.
How can we know that which is Wholly Other?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
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2 comments:
Do I sense a little Karl Barth here?
Never read Barth. It's a combo of Rudolph Otto's "Idea of the Holy," R.C. Sproul, and Thomas Merton, among others.
The Otherness and incomprehensibility of God. A great overwhelming thought.
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